


A question of ethics

by Leu (Karaii)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Digital Art, Fan Comics, Gen, How do you operationally define life in the HP world?, I HAVE QUESTIONS JK, Professor Albus Dumbledore, Student Tom Riddle, what's the difference between a charm and a hex?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karaii/pseuds/Leu
Summary: “Would you say a Transfigured animal is alive, sir?”
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Tom Riddle
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

Tom’s eyes gleamed oddly. “I have a question about today’s lesson, sir.“

Dumbledore peered down expectantly at Tom over his half-moon glasses. Tom felt a strange thrill at being the focus of that intense gaze.

“If I may ask it,” said Tom primly.

“I would be a poor teacher indeed if I did not give my students a place to air their doubts,” said Dumbledore coolly.

Tom was as good at detecting fear as he was lies, and somehow he knew Albus Dumbledore dreaded what he was about to ask; therefore, Tom asked it with a singular pleasure: “Would you say a Transfigured animal is alive, sir?”

Dumbledore showed no outward sign of discomfort when he replied, “It depends on how you define life, Mister Riddle, though the short answer is No. Adalbert Waffling wrote a rather seminal paper on just the subject, if you are so interested–”

“So a Transfigured animal cannot die?” interrupted Tom.

“It can be reverted to its original form,” said Dumbledore. “You shall learn Untransfiguration in your second year–”

“But surely a Master of Transfiguration such as yourself can create an animal so life-like that it may as well be the real thing,” insisted Tom. “To the degree that if one should cut it, it would bleed–”

“An unusually cruel notion,” murmured Dumbledore.

“It would feel pain,” Tom continued, as if he had not heard, “it would squeal and try to run, would it not? Sir?”

“Under such duress, the magic would fail, and the Transfiguration would revert to its original form,” said Dumbledore coldly.

“But a sufficiently powerful wizard–”

“I would not pursue such a thought experiment further,” said Dumbledore with a deep finality. “If that is all, Mister Riddle?”

That was certainly not all, but Tom still felt some measure of satisfaction at this exchange. The dark wizard Grindelwald was terrified of this man, but this man was terrified of Tom; it was endlessly delightful to reinforce the fact. “Yes, sir,” said Tom, lowering his gaze in mock deference. “Thank you, Professor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Tom Riddle was such a creep child gahahaha imagine having this little shit in class?? he’d play devil’s advocate just to fuck with you xD
> 
> I can see Tom being this perfect stepford smiling child with everyone but Dumbledore, where he takes singular pleasure in making Albus squirm as he asks increasingly more morally dubious questions in and outside class. In this case Tom wants to catch Albus in an ethical dilemma, because if transfigured animals are not alive then you can torture them and it is not unethical, for they are not living, etc
> 
> For a master of transfiguration like albus (+ the fact that he’s so insanely powerful), it’s probably magically plausible for him to create an animal that so mimics its real life counterpart it is functionally identical in all but its origin; presumably, it would therefore be able to breathe, and bleed, and die…
> 
> (honestly i have a lot of ethical concerns regarding the widespread animal abuse in the harry potter world lol… all those rats transfigured into cups and shit. not to mention how the heckie does life/sentience work?? harry potter world is a perpetual existencial nightmare, imagine being a portrait and realizing it, ashtksjaht. I HAVE QUESTIONS JK!!!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get the feeling Tom Riddle was one of Those students that kept holding up the class with picky questions that, objectively, are quite valid but nonetheless detract from everyone’s learning experience, which probably drove Albus up the wall. He’s polite to a fault but I can see him being more cutting and sharp with Tom where he otherwise would be delighted to have an inquisitive, clever student because he perceived Tom interrupted on purpose – though let’s be real, Albus was biased against him from the start due to his own prejudices and that’s a major flaw of his.
> 
> I just find their potential classroom dynamic fascinating. Tom Riddle is exactly like Albus Dumbledore was as a kid and that’s fundamentally why Albus dislikes him.
> 
> (No but seriously, what IS the difference between a Charm and a Transfiguration???? JK EXPLAIN)


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't know why I was sorted into Gryffindor," Poppy sniffed. "I'm nothing but a coward."

"That's a lie and you know it," Minerva said, briskly rubbing Boil-Curing solution onto the mess that was her friend's purulent arm. "Besides, the House Sorting is a load of hogwash."

"What? Surely you don't mean that!"

"I always mean what I say, exactly as I say it." Minerva wrapped the bandage by hand as she spoke, her lips twisted in distaste. "It's ridiculous to categorise children into loosely fitting personality types before their personality has time to fully develop."

"It's not about personality," Poppy said earnestly. "It's temperament, which we're born with. The houses are based on the four Humours--"

"Don't quote Hippocrates at me, Pomfrey, I ate that theory for breakfast and it's almost time for dinner." Minerva patted her friend's arm, now safely ensconced in about half an inch's worth of paste and gauze. "Sanguine Gryffindors, Choleric Slytherins, Melancholic Ravenclaws, and Phlegmatic Hufflepuffs. I read _Hogwarts: A History_ , same as you. As if a person can't be brave and studious and ambitious and loyal all at once! You're all of that and more, Poppy, so don't let one silly schoolyard fight put you down."

Poppy's bottom lip trembled.

"You hear me?" Minerva insisted with her characteristic Scottish accent, shaking her friend's shoulders for emphasis.

"Aye," Poppy said. "I hear you." She mustered up a smile, which Minerva reflected back at her.

"You know, I have often said we Sort too soon."

The two witches startled, badly. "Professor Dumbledore!?"

"The one, and thankfully, only," said the eccentrically dressed Transfiguration teacher with his usual cheery smile. "It is always a treat to hear students so thoughtfully criticise our beloved institution."

As usual, neither of them could tell if he was being ironically genuine or genuinely ironic; it was often the case that he could be both.

"We're, ah-- quite sorry, sir," Poppy said. "Minnie didn't mean any harm by it."

"I am not sorry, Professor," Minerva said bluntly. "It truly is a needlessly reductive system."

Poppy gripped her friend's arm in alarm but Professor Dumbledore merely laughed, delighted. "An apt observation! How, instead, do you propose we should Sort? Or shall we do away with Sorting entirely?"

"Well, I don't know how to fix it," Minerva said stiffly. "But I do know it's far from perfect, sir."

"I quite agree with you," Dumbledore confessed. "It is a heavily flawed method. But, like many of the organisms and organisations that rule our society, it is an inherited burden that we must adapt to, and, if sufficiently dissatisfied, change by well-reasoned increments. To overthrow a system from the start merely because it is flawed without properly proposing a solution is, in essence, an anarchical revolution doomed, I am afraid, to produce more grief than it had at the outset."

Poppy looked overwhelmed, but Minerva looked thoughtful.

"Change by well-reasoned increments," she echoed. "Like one does in Transfiguration?"

Dumbledore beamed. "Quite so! Five points to Gryffindor for a marvellous association."

"You're planning on making Minnie a Prefect one day, aren't you?" Poppy said shrewdly.

Dumbledore's smile turned into something more mischievous. "Oh, but who can say what the future holds? On that note, my Inner Eye says you two should soon be in the Great Hall for dinner. My Outer Nose smells something like pot roast. Off you go!"

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore," the two girls chimed, and walked off arm-in-arm. He watched them go with a twinkle in his eye; it was, contrary to popular belief, not a charm-- he had inherited it from his mother who had Selkie blood down her maternal line. It gave his iris its characteristic, reflective sheen; though he did, on occasion, spell it more or less noticeable.

"Renouncing revolutionary action merely because one of its byproducts is momentary grief," said a high, cold voice, "when maintaining an unacceptable status quo is guaranteed misery -- how un-Gryffindor-like of you, Professor."

"I wouldn't call it miserable," Dumbledore said, tilting his head slightly upward to meet Tom Riddle's, who was casually lounging on the rafters.

"No, of course you wouldn't." Tom neatly slid off the sloping beam, blurring into his cloak like a gust of black wind, reconfiguring on the ground without a single hair out of place. "Such is the mark of your privilege. Sir."

“That was an impressive piece of magic,” Dumbledore said, ignoring the slight. “A shadow-step instead of proper apparition. Did a vampire teach you this, Tom?”

Pride always brought out the boy’s knee-jerk honesty. “It’s my own invention,” he said stiffly.

“Remarkable,” Dumbledore said. “Just like how bats and birds came to have wings through different means, it appears you have converged upon a similar method of flight.”

"You insult me,” Tom said coldly.

“Not at all,” Dumbledore said. “I am sorry if you took it as such. I, myself, fancy a fire-step--” he demonstrated by flickering to the left in a flash of phoenix-flame, emerging unruffled behind Tom’s blind spot, to the boy’s momentary but quickly snuffled alarm.

“It is not subtle,” Tom said.

“Well, no. I am, after all, a Gryffindor,” Dumbledore said, with a quirk of his lips.

“But you use it like a Slytherin,” Tom said shrewdly.

Dumbledore tilted his head slightly to a side. A backhanded compliment?

“Do we Sort too soon,” Tom Riddle asked, softly. “Or not enough?”

“Oh?” There was no more twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, now. "Would you do away with our Sorting system, then, Mister Riddle?" 

"I might refine it," Tom said idly. He met Dumbledore's eyes with the casual defiance of a confident Occlumens. "Though, of course, I am no Grindelwald to dismantle it entirely."

"Gellert Grindelwald would not dismantle it," Dumbledore said quietly. "He would Sort upon birth, before choice is an option." He paused. "Such is his rhetoric."

"I suppose that's a future we all have to look forward to," Tom said drolly. "Seeing as he's winning the war. They say he soon will make an attempt at our shores, and our Ministry will accept him with open arms.”

"Grindelwald will not invade England," Dumbledore said calmly. "Not while I live."

"Is that what you tell yourself? His muggles have already dropped bombs on me! On wizard folk!" Tom's face twisted abruptly with his rage. “His acolytes pervade the Ministry. The children of his followers openly walk our halls. I don't need a bloody Inner Eye to see he doesn't need to touch England to change it—he already has.”

"Grindelwald will not win England," Dumbledore repeated, coldly, "so long as I live."

“How? You while away your time debating rhetoric with children!” Tom seemed, for a moment, desperate. “Don’t you get it? If you don’t fight now, then he has already won. You cannot kill an idea, Professor Dumbledore, until you kill everyone that thinks it.”

“Murder is hardly ever the answer, Mister Riddle,” Dumbledore said crisply. “And you would do well to remember that. Now I would advise you to walk back to your dormitory. Curfew approaches, and I shall not overlook your nighttime wanderings this time.”

Tom Riddle’s handsome face distorted with a passing sneer before it became smooth. “Yes, sir,” he said, in a tone edging on mockery.

Albus Dumbledore watched him go, and, for a brief moment, felt as if he was watching another boy go. The darkness swiftly followed him-- when Tom rounded the corner and disappeared, a flash of fire briefly licked Albus’ beard as his phoenix appeared upon his shoulder, driving away all nearby shadows. Fawkes crooned softly, having been summoned by his human’s sadness.

“Alas, my dear Fawkes,” Albus murmured. “It appears we missed dinner yet again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :)


End file.
